A blog on crisis communications best practices, emergency information and social media in emergency management ... an open forum for exchanging ideas and experience on emergency info and SMEM..
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Monday, March 21, 2011

Who uses social media?

Who's leading the way in the use of social media in Canada? The answer might surprise you.

Immigrants are on the digital vanguard

The revolution in social media is changing the way ideas are transmitted, and unseating traditional power brokers. A comprehensive new study, from Environics Analytics and the digital strategy firm Delvinia, shows older, affluent well-educated Canadians, the very people who usually embrace new technology, are not leading the social media conversation on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. They are following it.

In contrast, the creators of social media content are more likely to be young, upwardly mobile immigrants living in Canada’s largest and most diverse cities – Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

Social media is not only an innovative form of communication, but a more democratic one. Education and wealth are no longer guarantees of currency and innovation. If Canada’s traditional elites want to retain their position as savvy consumers, early adapters and captains of industry, they cannot just eavesdrop on the conversation, but must gain the confidence to participate in it.

The online study of 23,144 people, being released on Tuesday, measured the frequency of use of 10 social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, podcasts, Wikis, Flickr and LinkedIn, as well as respondents’ comfort level with social media.